Erik is a baseball fan who has been attending baseball games and snagging baseballs regularly since 2008.

6-10-11 PNC Park

The New York Mets are in town for a four game series. I would stay for the entire game, as my fiancee Amy had to work today.

The day got off to a good start as Kevin Correia tossed me ball #1 of the day shortly after the gates opened. Here he, second to the left. The group you see below from left to right is Chris Resop, Joel Hanrahan, Daniel McCutchen (obstructed), Kevin Correia, and Josh Harrison.
Hanrahan especially seems to dislike the regular ballhawks, for no other reason than he sees us get balls. I wish he’d be a little less rude about our hobby. It wasn’t that long ago (2009) that he had a 7.71 ERA for the Nationals and was dubbed ‘Gas-Can’ Hanrahan for his ability to come into the game and douse the situation with gasoline for the other team to blow the game wide open.

Now he’s a shut down closer. He just seems a bit arrogant / unfriendly, which I hope will change.

My second ball was a ground rule double that took a huge bounce, hit off of a railing separating the handicapped section from the lower bleachers, and settled at my feet, basically. Here’s a straight on view of where I snagged it:
That was all I got during the Pirates batting practice, which ended around 5:14. When the Mets came out to hit, I was able to glove trick a ball in left field, despite manager Terry Collins closing in on it. It was a quick 10 second glove trick execution. Unfortunately, Collins stayed in the left field corner and gobbled up at least three other balls I could’ve glove tricked.

Ball #4 was thrown to me by Chris Capuano in left:

And at 5:30, when right field opened, I was able to get Jason Pridie to throw me one as well.
My sixth ball was glove tricked a bit later back in left field near the foul pole. I stood in foul territory to the right of the foul pole.

My seventh and final ball was a home run hit by Ronny Paulino. I was distracted by a potential ground rule double by the bullpen. The next ball was a home run that I caught a glimpse of as it was in mid flight. Since I got a late break on the ball, I wasn’t able to get into position to make the catch, but I did catch it immediately as it hit a bleacher and deflected right to me here:
As for the game, I tried for two warm up balls, failed, and walked around to pass the time until the 7th inning, when I would leave to go get the car to park close by so Amy wouldn’t have to walk far when she got off of work.

It was pretty crowded in every outfield section anyhow:
Here’s the most interesting picture I took from this 8-1 Mets blow out win.
Gross.

If you hadn’t noticed, I have snagged 34 less batted balls through the same amount of games. That’s because BP at PNC Park has been pretty poor by and large this year. Statistics last year were buoyed by the likes of Lastings Milledge and Ronny Cedeno in the final group. My thrown balls are almost the same, glove tricks are way up, as the other glove-tricker at PNC Park isn’t being as aggressive as he was last year. So, with crappy Pirates BPs everyday, all regulars at PNC are experiencing deflated stats. Nick Pelescak had 173 last year at this point, all of our ‘hit’ numbers are down.

The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions.